


What is Art?

by sage_advice



Category: Original Work
Genre: OCs - Freeform, Original Character(s), Snippets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:47:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21757789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sage_advice/pseuds/sage_advice
Summary: Margot Montale is not my first OC but she is fun to write with, since she has her own view of the world! One would, of course, if they lived for thousands of years through the lens of other people’s dreams.





	What is Art?

“Do you like art?” she asked him. 

He nearly stumbled, and did pause to turn and look at her. To his great shock, she seemed to have asked the question out of genuine curiosity. “Do I...like art?”

She rocked on her heels, clasped her hands behind her back, and smiled at him. “Why are you staring at me so? One would think I had asked you something truly vulgar, such as, ‘Do you like wine?’” 

While still reeling, he attempted to respond composedly. “Ah, I see it clearly now—you have actually asked me here today to toy with my emotions!”

She considered his statement. “That was...an unexpected benefit, yes. However, that is not why I asked you, ‘Do you like art?’ A question which you have yet to answer.”

“Well...of course I do! Why on earth would my life be as it is today if I didn’t?”

Margot shrugged and turned to walk again, her long skirt swishing behind her. “Lots of reasons. I’ve known so many painters in my time...some were thrust into it by their parents to gain prestige, some were seeking prestige all their own, some were merely creating art because they had nothing better to do with their time.” 

It seemed to him that she was attempting to pin one of these motives on himself. “I assure you, madame, my interest in art is entirely selfless.”

Like the slice of a blade through the air, she cut her eyes toward him. “Is it now?” she asked doubtfully, resuming her walk. "Selflessness is perhaps the most fleeting muse of all. No one is immune from a sense of self-entitlement. You wish to be paid for your work! At least in recognition if not in real money. Why delude yourself into believing that you do not? Artists, I’ve observed, all contain within themselves the same fatal flaw—we wish to gain the enlightenment that comes from being separate from the world, a passive observer with higher thoughts—” these words were accompanied by a slight eye roll, “—yet, we are hopelessly drawn to all that makes living in it so magnificent and horrifying.”

He had the distinct feeling of being caught in a web and slowly circled by a predator. One which he wished would come closer. “And which muse would you call the most common?” 

“Oh...love! Undoubtedly!” she barked a laugh toward the heavens. “Love has dipped her hands into almost every work of art that has ever been created. Even the earliest of us who, for want of tools, scraped stones against rocks in our efforts to depict the massive beasts of our time, did so out of love for our world and fellow man. Love, fear, and a desire to share information.” 

Fierro rarely found himself eager to hear someone continue to talk, but he was captivated by this woman who spoke as if she had seen everything and wanted only to see even more. “Is love your muse then?”

“One of them.”

“It is not common to have more than one muse, these days. Some even spend their whole lives searching for just one.”

Margot’s calm bemused expression remained, but her tone turned icy and her steps no longer sounded on the stone beneath her heels. "Those little men making chalk art for strangers in dark parlors wouldn’t know a muse if it walked up and slapped them. They think a muse is a woman who looks at you with honey dripping out of her eyes and obeys your every command to undress without asking why.” 

She sighed and, with a slight roll of the shoulders, regained her normal voice. “The true muses of the world are like the gods of the old religions. They are forces of nature, emotions, phenomena. Sometimes they take the form of animals, places, and people whom we feel very strongly connected to. They are those singular and rare meetings which give the poets a reason to write poetry and the warriors a reason to survive wars. They are timeless, unalterable, and yet endlessly interpretable. They exist everywhere but people still seek them out in the wrong places. Unfortunate, given that they want to be found as earnestly as we wish to find them.”

It occurred to him that their conversation had come quite a long way from the question which had triggered it. “Do you like art?” she had asked him, and then proceeded to make him question if they were talking about the same thing. 

“What is art, to you?” he blurted, perhaps unwisely. 

She took her time formulating her answer. The clock in the tower struck twelve in the meantime, but neither of them attended to it beyond a glance.

“Art...” she took a deep breath, “is a form of communication.” 

He was not ashamed to admit it—he had not been expecting that answer. “A means of communication?” he repeated dumbly. He remembered her noting it earlier in their conversation, but still wasn’t quite sure what she meant.

Margot merely nodded, glanced at him, pivoted in her heels, looked about her surroundings, and then sat resolutely upon the foot-high base of a tall marble statue, crossing her legs before her. 

He joined her, trying to ignore the presence of the marble man who stood above them. Watching. “Please elaborate.”

She squinted at nothing in particular. “Hmmm...I don’t feel like it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Margot Montale is not my first OC but she is fun to write with, since she has her own view of the world! One would, of course, if they lived for thousands of years through the lens of other people’s dreams.


End file.
